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Big losers in 'fiscal cliff' talks? Tea party, perhaps.

POSTED BY: NIKI2
UPDATED: Monday, December 10, 2012 08:10
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Monday, December 10, 2012 6:59 AM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...


Quote:

By the numbers, it would seem that Election 2012 didn't change much, with the White House and Congress remaining in the same hands. But Monday’s Capitol Hill goings-on hinted at just how much Washington’s terrain is shifting

The conservative wing of the GOP, which propelled the party to historic success in 2010, is being marginalized – leading to open calls for rebellion in some quarters.

First, there’s a Republican moderation on taxes – accepting new revenues that are anathema to the tea party credo that gave Republicans control of the House two years ago. But more quietly, House leaders stripped plum committee assignments from three deeply conservative freshman lawmakers – assignments doled out with much fanfare in 2010 to show that party leadership would listen to its vocal and conservative bloc of freshman members.

Together, the two moves are evidence of the stresses within a Republican Party trying to reorient itself after an electoral drubbing in November

On Monday, House Republican leaders signed on to a plan that would raise $800 billion in taxes over a decade as part of a $2.2 trillion proposal to avert the impending "fiscal cliff." The plan did not raise tax rates but vowed to close tax loopholes, providing money that the federal government could use to pay down the deficit.

In the summer of 2011, House Speaker John Boehner (R) of Ohio reportedly offered a similar amount of revenue in debt-reduction negotiations with President Obama. But House majority leader Eric Cantor (R) of Virginia and House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R) of Wisconsin called such use of tax revenues everything short of political apostasy. This year, however, they put their signatures on the offer to the president on Monday.

Representative Cantor noted the change the election wrought even before the House GOP made its offer.

“The speaker put new revenues on the table just after the election and said: 'We get it. The president won his reelection; we won our reelection. We have to now come together,' ” he told reporters on Friday. Offering more tax revenue “is our proposal to the president that we were unwilling to give a year and a half ago during the debt-ceiling talks."

The groups that powered the conservative surge in 2010 treated the plan with icy disdain.

“The president's proposal and Speaker Boehner's counteroffer fail to seriously deal with the reality of the problems facing the nation,” said Tim Phillips, the president of Americans for Prosperity, an arch-conservative advocacy group backed by a pair of conservative billionaires. “Conservatives are looking for a leader to fight against tax increases, to push back against wasteful government spending, and address the fiscal challenges in a bold way. Sadly, this plan leaves conservatives wanting."

An e-mail sent to supporters of Heritage Action, the political advocacy arm of the conservative Heritage Foundation, added: “Republicans retained control of the U.S. House of Representatives to serve as a check to President Obama's big-government agenda, not to find creative ways to fund it.”More at http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/The-Vote/2012/1204/Big-losers-in
-fiscal-cliff-talks-Tea-party-perhaps


So now we've got Heritage, Freedom Works and Club for Growth out there rallying the Tea Partiers to be "even bolder in their efforts".

As has been obvious all along, the Tea Partiers are hung up on "principle", not on representing their constituents. They're all about it--as they have said so many times, they'd rather lose on principle than win. The removal of those four Tea-Party Congressmen from their committees has only made them more determined to cause trouble. They're calling their removal the "price to be paid for voting based on principle". "Americans send principled representatives to change Washington and get punished in return."

Do they TRULY not get that 2010 was a reaction of fear by the American people, and not a ticket to obstruct "on principle" to the detriment of the country? Or are they aware of reality and just playing a game?

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Monday, December 10, 2012 7:09 AM

ANTHONYT

Freedom is Important because People are Important


Hello,

If I truly believed that the Tea Party was a party of principle, I'd be proud of them for sticking to their guns.

However, I feel that ship sailed after the 2008 election.

I am highly suspect of their motives nowadays. I feel that the best principles of the party evaporated along with Ron Paul's 2008 presidential campaign.

As an aside, I wish I'd bought some of those Ron Paul gold coins back then. I thought gold was overpriced at the time, but I had no conception of how much higher it would go.




--Anthony

Note to Self:
Raptor - woman testifying about birth control is a slut (the term applies.)
Context: http://tinyurl.com/d6ozfej
Six - Wow, isn't Niki quite the CUNT? And, yes, I spell that in all caps....
http://tinyurl.com/bdjgbpe
Wulf - Niki is a stupid fucking bitch who should hurry up and die.
Context: http://tinyurl.com/afve3r9

“The stupid neither forgive nor forget; the naive forgive and forget; the wise forgive but do not forget.” -T. S. Szasz

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Monday, December 10, 2012 8:00 AM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...


Really? Why, other than principle, would they be so determined to "stick to their guns"? Can you tell me? It doesn't make sense to me, given how unpopular they are in all polls, how what they've done has harmed their constituents, how in this recent election some of the freshmen tea partiers were voted out, etc. It just doesn't make sense to me unless they're self-deluded into thinking losing on principle is better than winning. Very confusing.

They have to be self-blinded not to see that the country is turning away from them. August of last year: "Poll: Tea party less popular than Muslims, atheists" http://dailycaller.com/2011/08/18/poll-tea-party-less-popular-than-mus
lims-atheists/
]. April of this year: "Tea Party Movement Looks Stalled"; "Support has dropped disproportionately among young adults, down 20 points from 51 percent to 31 percent" http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/04/tea-party-movement-looks-
stalled-half-like-it-less-as-they-hear-more/
] October: "The Tea Party political movement has slipped to its weakest favorability on record in ABC News/Washington Post polls" http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/10/lackluster-popularity-dog
s-the-political-parties/
and on and on. Don't they see what's happening?

It's just weird to me.

Tit for tat got us where we are today. If we want to be grownups, we need to resist the ugliness. If we each did, this would be a better reflection on Firefly and a more welcome place. I will try.

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Monday, December 10, 2012 8:10 AM

AURAPTOR

America loves a winner!



The TEA party movement is absolutely dead on right, of course. Less spending is what this country needs, but the greedy Leftists, so blinded by power, are more than willing to sell the futures of our grandchildren to "win" today's battles, nothing else matters to them.

And the old guard GOP elites, they're more than willing to play along, just so they can stay in power too, and gather what scraps the Obamabots toss at them onto the floor.

"False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil." - Socrates

" I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend. "

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